Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what response his Department received to its suggestion that councils in Dorset should apply a voluntary cap of £95,000 to any exit payments arising from local government reorganisation.
Redundancy policies are a matter for individual councils having regard to the contracts of employment into which they have entered. The Dorset councils have informally indicated their expectation that there would be very few cases where redundancy payments would exceed £95,000, and even in such cases any excess over £95,000 would be minimal.
The Government is supportive of the principle of a cap of £95,000. In 2016 the Government legislated to cap exit payments across the public sector to a maximum of £95,000. A consultation on proposed implementation arrangements will be forthcoming in 2018.